Page:The Works of the Famous Nicholas Machiavel.djvu/449

Book III.

T falls out of Neceity (as has been aid before) that in a great City there is not a Day but ome Accidents occur that have need to be remedied; and as they are of more or les Importance, o their Phyician ought to be more or les expert. And if trange and unexpected Accidents ever happened in any City, it was in Rome: One of which Sort, was the general Conpiracy of the Roman Women againt their Hubands: Some had poioned their Hubands already, and all the ret had their Materials ready to do as much by theirs. Of the ame Sort was the Conpiracy of the Bacchanals dicovered during the Time of the Macedonian War, in which many Thouands of Men and Women were engaged; which would have been very dangerous for that City, had it not been dicovered; for the Romans had not a Cutom of punihing whole Multitudes when they offended. And here we cannot but admire the Fortitude, the Severity, the Magnanimity of the Romans in punihing Offenders; which ( if there were nothing ele to evince it ) would be a great Tetimony of their Virtue and Power. For o great was their Jutice, they made no Scruple to execute a whole Legion, or City, at a Time: Sometimes they banihed Eight or Ten Thouand Men together, with uch Conditions as would have been inupportable to a ingle Man: So it happened to thoe who ecaped from the Battel at Cannas, they banihed them all into Sicily, forbidding them to Quarter in any Town, or to commit any Diorder. But the mot terrible of all their Executions was the Decimation of their Armies, in which every Tenth Man was put to Death by Lot quite thorough their Army; nor for the Punihment of a Multitude, can any way be found more formidable; for where a Multitude trangrees, and no certain Author is known, to punih the whole with Death would be too evere; and to punih one Part, and excue another, would be unjut to thoe who were punih'd, and encourage the other to commit the ame Offence again. But where all are alike Guilty, to execute every Tenth Man by Lots, gives him who is to be punihed, occaion to complain only of his Fortune; and makes him who ecapes, afraid againt the next Time. The good Women then who would have poion'd their Hubands, and the Priets of Bacchus, were punihed as they deeiv'd and though thee Maladies in a Commonwealth have many times very ill Symptoms, yet they are not Mortal, becaue there is till Time enough for the Cure. But where the State is concerned, it is otherwie, and Time may be wanting; and therefore if they be not eaonably and prudently redreed, the whole Government may micarry. And this may be dear'd to us, by what happened in Rome. The Romans having been very free in bellowing the Freedom and Privileges of their City upon Strangers, the Strangers grew o numerous by Degrees, and to have o great a Vote in the Councils, that the whole Government began to totter, and decline from its old to its new Inhabitants which being oberved by Quintus Fabius the Cenor, he applied a Remedy in Time, by reducing all the new Citizens into Four Tribes; that being contrated into o narrow a Space, they might not have o malignant an Influence upon the City, and this o timely and o ueful Expedient, was taken o thankfully from him by the People, that they gave him the Addition of Maximus, and he was called Fabius Maximus ever after. Rh